A Conquering Hero
by Esperance
Summary: Saix is in the room when Xemnas summons Axel for the last time and orders him to go destroy Roxas. Early KHII canon, with some Saix introspection and heavily implied AkuRoku.


**Author: **Esperance

**Rating: **K+

**Fandoms/Characters/Pairings: **Kingdom Hearts; Saix, Xemnas, and Axel with mentions of Roxas and vague others; Heavily implied Akuroku or one-sided Axel/Roxas.

**Author's Note: **Hurray for plot bunnies that bite me in the middle of reading a 50 1-sentence challenge fic and delay writing the ending of my longer Akuroku fic (which will also be posted later today, hopefully), especially ones that require me to write about characters I usually push to the sidelines! Also, I feel like I haven't been channeling enough of the desperate/defensive!Roxas we see in that classic fight against Riku (and his best quote - "Shut up!") in my last few fics. Plus, unexpected Saix feels.

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Saix is in the room when Xemnas summons Axel for the last time and orders him to go destroy Roxas. Specifically, to "go back and annihilate Number XIII before he further betrays them."

The man looks thinner than normal, sickly-thin, and pale, with dark spots fighting for attention with the tattoos under his eyes. This is not the scheming, mocking, fiery in every sense of the word Flurry of the Dancing Flames; this is a tired, defeated shadow of the former Nobody.

"I admire your attempts to retrieve XIII and undo whatever sort of mental terrorism - this seeming _amnesia_ - that old fool DiZ has subjected him to," he says with mock sympathy, looming over the figure before his high-backed throne. "But the time has come to continue on with our plans, and we cannot allow even a former member to compromise what we have fought for these last few years."

The Axel from before would have defied him, snapping back with a sharp retort, his green eyes bright, offering up a million reasons for why he was wrong or to at least reconsider. The Axel of a few days ago had been almost hyper aware; frantic, fidgeting, full of desperate kinetic energy as he practically fell on his knees and begged Xemnas to drag his former best friend back and give him a second chance.

This Axel doesn't even look up, staring at some fixed point on the ground. "I understand," he drones, like the model of the blank, emotionless Nobody he should have been all along.

"Good. You may leave within the hour and report to us when you have completed your...assignment."

He barely inclines his head in assent, hand rising to form a portal out.

"I understand that this is...difficult for you, number VIII. That you two had formed a kind of _friendship_." Xemnas brings an odd inflection to the word, and Saix sees Axel's lip curl in some semblance of a smile, or closer to a sneer. He's not sure if it's because of the obvious disdain for the word, or something about what an ill fit it is in attempting to cover all that was between them and the limitations of what they were. "But you will see that it was worth it, in time."

"Yes, Superior."

The space beside of him opens up, swirling from a pinpoint into a sizable void, tendrils of darkness spilling out. The click of Axel's boots as he efficiently walks toward it echoes throughout the empty hall.

"He really doesn't remember anything about you. Nothing at all." It's not a question, more like an offhanded musing, and it's not said in any sort of pitying manner. If they were capable of bleeding like normal humans Saix would say it was to drive the metaphorical knife in a little deeper.

It's enough to make Axel pause for half a step, for the Axel from before to resurface however briefly, as the hand hanging to his right side curls into a fist and his head swings ever so slightly to the left – an aborted shake of the head, or a flinch from an unpleasant truth. But not enough for him to turn around or give a verbal negative, and he resumes his walk purposefully.

He disappears inside of the portal and it closes a moment later, the faintly audible sound of it giving an unshakeable sense of finality. Saix will not be surprised if he later learns this was the last time he will ever see Axel.

The Superior turns back to him. "Observe it well."

Saix never responds to his Superior, unless he is asked a direct question. If he had been asked, he would tell Xemnas that he had known about the decline of number VIII for a very long time. His growing dependence on Number XIII, from nearly the first time they had been partnered together on a mission until that fateful night when he had stormed out of the castle. The way they threw around words like "best friends" and "special" and "together" as if they held some meaning, and their routine visits to a certain clock tower to eat ice cream at sunset.

He might remark that he has never understood what was so special about Roxas – on a personal level, that is to say, because he has been briefed about his connection to the Keyblade Bearer and his significance to rebuilding Kingdom Hearts – because he only ever saw a small child that was at turns fiercely offended and frightened by the life around him he had no memories of. His demeanor had been unpleasant and his reception always icy, levels past the grey area of indifference every Nobody was encouraged to maintain, so vastly different from Axel's warmth and wicked edge.

However, he would never say that once, weeks ago, he caught the two of them coming in from their missions sharing a chaste, private and absolutely inappropriate smile. The boy must have learned it from someone he had observed somewhere, though it looked genuine, his eyes softer as his eyes caught the others and his whole person relaxed, making him resemble the ordinary teenager he could have been mistaken for. Axel had seemed younger too, his smile more of a slight curve of his lips and a crinkle at the corners of his eyes than the leer or toothy grin he usually offered, looking far more innocent than the serial murderer and lair and _traitor_ that he was.

Some corner of Saix's mind rebelled against his highly conditioned sense of composure to think that this was the first time he'd ever seen a trace of Lea in him.

He wouldn't say that he had been there just a week ago, licking his fresh battle wounds, when Axel had come in from the rain, muttering two words over and over again like they were some kind of summoning spell before he went straight to his room and set it on fire in a reckless display of something like rage or frustration or a different false emotion altogether.

Xemnas purposefully flicks his eyes to the place Axel had been and back. "Once Number VIII has completed his assignment, you have my order to eliminate him."

Once he is dismissed, Saix roams the empty halls that were once throbbing with life and intrigue and so many insignificant plans that eventually collapsed, past rooms with doors marking them as belonging to members that are long deceased and, in some cases, already forgotten. He does not waiver in his determination to fulfill his master's command, does not try to mourn the loss of a formerly competent subordinate. He is not a murderer; he is just following orders. He is simply eliminating a weakness in the machine, a dead weight; tangible proof that sometimes even the strongest fall to the most unusual things.

As early as the end of today, or at most in a few days from now, he will meet with Axel, and there may be a brief battle, but in the end there will not be much of a struggle. Axel will die from a claymore through his chest, or he will considerately snap his thin neck, or smother him with his own cloak. All breath will cease, the light will go out from his already-dull eyes, and he will slowly fade, physically from all existence and existentially in most memory.

If Saix had a heart, he might think he felt sorry for him.

Instead, he thinks about the Nobody Axel could have been instead, a leader among them, intelligent and ambitious if not absolutely ruthless, a conquering hero, incorruptible once they all succeeded in regaining their hearts. So much promise, intercepted and subverted by a single blond-haired boy with too big eyes and too many of the wrong questions that made him want much different things and consumed him before leaving and not looking back.

And now he must erase what used to be Number VIII instead, this shell of what used to be the man that was his childhood friend, this last proof that things can be accomplished without the assistance of the destroyers known as Keyblade Masters, and he will. And it will be painless, it will be quick, and it will be easy.

After all, Axel is already dead.

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**Review? Please?**


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